The revenge of Indian English

When the Oxford English Dictionary decided it was time to add an Indian English pronunciation guide, they soon realised that it was one of the most complex projects they had taken on. Illustration by C Y Gopinath using Midjourney

What is your good name, sir?"

"Myself Vivek Ganapathy Ramaswamy originally from Vadakkencherry, Kerala."

"And you are with which company working?"

"Just now not exactly employed but one day I will be famous like Trump."

You are still wearing that puzzled look that comes from an unanswered question. Who or what is Vivek Ramaswamy and why is he in my column?

Let's try some other names. Heard of a TamBram called Sundar Pichai? CEO of a company called Google? No?

What about Satya Nadella of Andhra Pradesh? They say he's #1 at Microsoft.

It's a rather long list, I'm afraid, the line-up of Indians and persons of Indian origin who now reign as CEOs of global companies and organisations.

Arvind Krishna, IBM.

Shantanu Narayen, Adobe Systems.

Parag Agrawal, Twitter.

Ajaypal Singh Banga, World Bank Group.

Anand Swaminathan, Global Managing Partner at McKinsey.

Vasant Narasimhan, Novartis.

Ring any bells at all?

Try this - Rishi Sunak? Indian ruling the country that once ruled India.

This country is producing top dogs one after the other, all kicking ass now in English-speaking countries. I'm no chauvinist and certainly do not believe in master races. I sneeze at Hindu supremacists and nationalists.

I confess, however, that my heart did a little flutter of pure joy when I read that a certain Rahul Roy-Chowdhury, American of Indian origin, had joined the elite ranks of Indian CEOs ruling the universe as the new head of a California-based firm called Grammarly.

The Grammarly app hovers over every word you write, mercilessly reminding you how execrable your command of English is, pointing out errors syntactical, idiomatic and grammatical. It finally deigns to tell you how to be coherent, articulate, diplomatic, even intelligent, in the language spoken natively or as a second language by about 1.5 billion earthlings.

Grammarly's language settings, I noticed with a quickening, now have a new choice besides American, British and Canadian English.

Indian English. Brought to you by the great folks who gave you chappals, stop eating my brain, do the needful, prepone and finger chips.

Indians are not supposed to be very good at English, never mind Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy, Amitav Ghosh, Rabindranath Tagore, Shashi Tharoor and their ilk. Yet Indian English, capricious, inventive and elusive, has been impossible to ignore. When the Oxford English Dictionary decided it was time to add an Indian English pronunciation guide, with over 800 entries including words like bindaas and jugaad, they soon realised that it was one of the most complex projects they had taken on.

As you would expect from a country with 22 official languages, around 400 languages spoken by a million or more people each, and thousands of dialects, Indian English has been impossible to pin down. Not only has it never been codified but you will probably never see a dictionary of Indian English.

A counter clerk in Bengal, where no one can pronounce a ‘v' might ask if Vickram is spelt with a bee for bictory or a bee for Bengal. Drift south to Kerala, India's litigation central, and you'll be inundated with ad hocs, de factos and mala fides, and wonder how to answer when you are asked how many issues you have.

Here, in the breeding ground of kolaveri, bhalle bhalle and kitty parties, it is easy to forget that the English we treat as normal is unheard of outside India. We make up words that might make a monarch cringe. No other country prepones its meetings or reverts back with a reply.

I cannot think of another country where a barked out, "Where are you doing any work?" would be correctly understood as a warning to do some serious work.

"You speak English so well, oh my god!" is the back-handed compliment I have heard over and over in 23 years of living outside India.

Sweet global revenge has come in the form of thousands of call centres, whence our local lads and lasses will flay the world with technical support in immaculate Ernakulam, Patiala or Mehndipur English accents.

It was a moment of unadulterated triumph when the venerable OED caved and admitted chuddies into its pages.

Which brings us tortuously back to Vivek Ganapathy Ramaswamy, sitting between a rock and a hard place, waiting to become famous like Trump. V G Ramaswamy is a Hindu and a vegetarian with an estimated net worth of 630 million dollars as of six days ago, an alumnus of Harvard and Yale Law School, and a second-generation American of Indian origin.

He doesn't speak Indian English; he has a perfect American twang with fleeting Dravidian lapses.

He recently announced his candidacy for the job of President of the United States. I hope he wins. I hope he becomes the king of America. Even though he sounds exactly like the dreadful Donald Trump every time he reveals his thoughts, I'm still rooting for him.

One day we may hear the band play Hail to the Chief and a voice announce, "The leader of the free world, the President of the United States, Shri Vivek Ganapathy Ramaswamy."

We will all die laughing.

You can reach C Y Gopinath at cygopi@gmail.com

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The views expressed in this column are the individual's and don't represent those of the paper